Today in Kingston junior hockey playoff history

April 20, 2013

Today’s installment in a daily feature that looks back at this date in Kingston junior hockey playoff history.

Wednesday, April 20, 1977

The longest playoff run in team history (to date) ended with a 6-1 home-ice loss to the Ottawa 67’s before a Memorial Centre crowd of 4,027. Ottawa, 9-7 winner of the eight-point semifinal series, will now advance to face the London Knights for the league championship.

“In the final analysis Kingston’s reserve strength was restricted to a handful of downcast players standing around the bench in street clothes, none of whom coach Jim Morrison could send over the boards in crucial situations,” Art Wright wrote in the Whig-Standard.

Though the Canadians got Ken Linseman back from his suspension, they still played without Rob Plumb or 56-goal scorer Mike Crombeen and the drain of injuries and suspensions throughout the series finally took its toll.

“We just ran out of steam,” Morrison said. “In the end it was just too much to overcome.”

At one point the Canadians needed to get just one point to win the series. Instead, they were soundly beaten twice, by a combined score of 15-1.

Ron Davidson, Warren Holmes, Steve Payne, Tom McDonell, Tim Higgins and Bob Smith scored for Ottawa. Linseman scored the only goal for Kingston, late in the second period, making the score 3-1. McDonell scored in the fourth minute of the third period and then Higgins and Smith scored just 50 seconds apart in the middle of the period to put the game away.